Builder can resume drilling under Tuscarawas River

Builders of the Rover Pipeline can resume boring beneath the Tuscarawas River, where construction was halted after drilling slurry spilled into a wetland.

The site was one of eight locations where the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday said Texas-based Energy Transfer could resume work.

The FERC put the Tuscarawas River crossing in Bethlehem Township on hold after 2 million gallons of drilling slurry tainted with diesel fuel spilled into a wetland in April. Workers later dumped the slurry in two quarries that were near water wells that supply Aqua Ohio and the Canton Water Department.

In its order, the FERC said the authorization to resume boring does not bear on its continuing investigation into how the slurry was contaminated.

It also said Rover's builders has to follow plans regarding restoration of the wetland, quarry cleanup and groundwater monitoring.

Rover spokeswoman Alexis Daniel said the company was pleased with the order and had been working with the commission on the issue for a number of months.

Energy Transfer's $4.2 billion Rover Pipeline will carry 3.25 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day from the Utica and Marcellus shales to markets in Canada and the United States.

The 713-mile pipeline system is more than 95 percent complete. One of the two mainlines across Ohio, along with a lateral line in southeastern Ohio, will be operational by the end of the year, the company has said.

The full Rover system is scheduled to be in service by the end of the first quarter of 2018.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has cited Rover for repeated environmental violations with civil penalties in excess of $2.3 million, and earlier this month the Ohio attorney general's office sued the company in Stark County Common Pleas Court.

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